Year two of the Kenny Payne era is officially underway and everyone associated with Louisville’s program is ready to see some positive results after a disastrous season a year ago.

The entire city is ready to put last year behind them and start this season off on the right foot, and that began today with a nail-biting one point win over UMBC. This game was a thriller for the Cardinals and fans were on the edge of their seat for the entirety of the second half.

Louisville is coming off of a disappointing loss to Kentucky Wesleyan in their last exhibition game, which isn’t a great sight after going 4-28 in Payne’s first year as head coach. However, the Cardinals did enough to escape with a win tonight and that’s all that matters. Beginning the season with a win has to feel like a relief for this team, because they learned that they can be hard to come by. If Kenny Payne can show flashes of improvement throughout the year, he’ll get the fans to believe in what he’s trying to build at Louisville.

By no means did Louisville play perfect, but they showed resiliency after overcoming a halftime deficit of eight points, something we didn’t see before, so that’s a great sign there.

This team definitely has a long way to go if they want to be a respectable team in the ACC, but they’ll have the entire season to progress and turn some weaknesses into strengths. One glaring weakness is the Cardinals defense displayed tonight. They recorded five blocks tonight, two of them coming from the freshman five-star center Dennis Evans, but they allowed far too many three point shots, as well as many good looks from beyond the arc.
The Retrievers hit 11 three pointers out of 21 attempts (52%), compared to just two three pointers for the Cardinals out of 14 attempts (14%). Louisville will have to improve their perimeter defense immediately, because that will be exposed as the competition level begins to intensify. They were able to get some key stops at the end of the game, but it needs to be consistent for 40 minutes.

It’s also evident that this team has trouble getting off to fast starts, which hopefully will also improve as they continue to gel together, because without high level scorers, this team isn’t built for a lot of come behind wins.

Now for the strengths, points in the paint were significantly in Louisville’s favor and that’s was their main source of scoring for the whole game. Mike James played an aggressive game, attacking the basket any time he could and his relentlessness was rewarded with 25 points and ten rebounds from a shooting guard. James also shot 14 free throws by himself, hitting 13 of them and the Cardinals needed every single one of those, literally.

Louisville didn’t play good in the opening half, as they got off to a solid start on offense, but as the half unfolded the defense was subpar and the offense looked stagnant at times. UMBC played the Cardinals close up until the last few minutes of the first half, where they started to pull away, and went up by 13 at one point. The Retrievers were getting whatever they wanted on offense, but Louisville was able to answer with some offense of their own to end the half down 48-40.

The Cardinals offensive attack looked raw for some stretches of the game, yet they still managed to score 94 points with only two three pointers made. Overall, they have some potential as a unit with new backcourt Skyy Clark and Ty-Laur Johnson leading the way this season.
They were able to take control of the game down the stretch and set their teammates up for success. Mike James also played a big part in Louisville’s win tonight, probably the biggest one. He continued to put pressure on the Retrievers by attacking the basket and getting to the foul line, which also allows a struggling defense to get set and matched up.

Both teams traded baskets back and forth for the last couple of minutes, and it was clear it was going to come down to the last shot. Starting forward Tre White came very close to giving the Retrievers the ball back with nearly ten seconds remaining after a wild game winner attempt, but White stole the ball back off their rebound and threw a lob to JJ Traynor who slammed it to give the Cardinals a 2 point advantage over UMBC.

That would go on to be the eventual game winning bucket to make the Louisville Cardinals 1-0. There’s a lot of work to do with Kenny Payne’s group, but if they’re able to protect the rim better and limit three point attempts, Louisville will be much better in his second season.

Louisville will be back in action at home on Friday against Chattanooga at 7:00 P.M (ET).